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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Oct. 23 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Can anyone in Congress write a bill? Or even read one?

Everyone in Congress admits they have not read the entire health reform bill. Yet, Congress is voting on it! The language is confusing. Excerpts have been put on the TV screen and no one can explain with certainty what these sentences mean. They are deliberately vague, leaving it open to some bureaucrat to tell Americans what they must do to comply with the law.

It is beyond belief that anyone in Congress could speak for the proposed legislation when they have not even read it. This begs the question, who wrote it? Obviously, no one in Congress, not even the leaders who are pushing reform with utter ignorance of what it will do to the country.

The president says socialized medicine will not cost the country anything; we can do it by eliminating fraud and overpricing of medical care. If you believe this, I have some waterfront property in Arizona.

Congress has nixed any price competition proposals that would lower costs. Now, if Congress will not allow competition to reduce prices, how in the world will we save money under socialized medicine in the future? Perhaps, we will be able to take a few thousand dollars and turn it into millions as Charlie Rangel did, miraculously creating savings for the American public.

President Obama promised, as did Nancy Pelosi, that this would be the most transparent administration in history. Well, as far as I am concerned, they are very transparent — the majority in Congress believe socialism is the answer to this country’s woes.

Anyone who spends the time to check socialized medicine will find that it is not as viable as our present system. What has driven up the costs? Government involvement. Go back to 1974, look at the arguments then and look at the arguments today — “Groundhog Day.”

SARGENT ‘SASSY’ MELLEN

Long Beach

If hypocrites are hilarious, it only hurts when I laugh

The hypocrites who oppose health care reform are hilarious.

First, you have those over 65 who already have government insurance. Their attitude seems to be, “I have government insurance, which is fine, but nobody under 65, especially those in the work force, should have government insurance.” They refuse to understand that the world has changed since they were in the work force and that very few employers provide their employees with insurance

Then you have the Christians that insist that it’s not the government’s job to be concerned about the welfare of American citizens, although they certainly didn’t have a problem with the government being concerned with their welfare after Katrina.